Nintendo Patent a Console that can be upgraded with a supplemental computing device

[WYP]

Nintendo has Patented the idea of a Console that can be upgraded with a supplemental computing device, allowing gamers to increase the speed or quality of the users gaming experience.

Read more on Nintendo's upgradeable console patent.

 

[shambles1980]

they did something similar with the nes, which allowed them to win court cases with tetris copyright claims, and helped alleviate the worry's people had coming out of the atari driven gaming crash that made people lose all faith in consoles.

Not really sure why they patented it now. unless they had to due to time limits, or its vastly different to the nes idea.

 

[Emu]

Erm, how the hell did they get this patent? The idea of supplementing a console's resources using external resources is actually pretty old. The Super Nintendo had games which included extra resources in the game cartridges (Star Fox for one), the Nintendo 64 had a performance boosting addon if I remember right, memory cartridges are a addon which provides performance enhancements, the external GPU that certain laptops have could also possibly invalidate this patent as well...

 

[shambles1980]

im pretty sure they came up with the idea though back when they launched the nes. possibly they only just decided to patent it?

 

[Kilbane]

Personally I think the best example of this being used previously would be the Sega 32x. It converted the Megadrive from 16bit to a 32bit console.

 

[shambles1980]

that was a terrible add-on though lol.
id imagine it will be more like the n64 type of situation. where they sell you a base unit. and then if you want to play a decent game you have to buy the better expansion pack. But essentialy its just going to be a computer cluster with both nodes working on the same thing.
Cant patent that though so it must be more than that.

 

[Warzone]

I think console manufacturers got the idea from the C64 when it was popular and expansion options were insane for it (including hacked/modified expansions) Also, the Apple II had similar expansion options.

 

[Wraith]

Personally I think the best example of this being used previously would be the Sega 32x. It converted the Megadrive from 16bit to a 32bit console.

I so wish I still had mine and the MegaCD too, but like the article says this is nothing new for Nintendo they did it with the N64. How about the dreamcast? that thing had a huge expansion port on the side... we'll sadly never know.

 

[shambles1980]

I think console manufacturers got the idea from the C64 when it was popular and expansion options were insane for it (including hacked/modified expansions) Also, the Apple II had similar expansion options.

the c64 was a pc, but nintendo did add the expansion capabilities so they could refer to teh nes as a computer rather than a console.

 

[zambutu]

Prior art aside, how can a patent be awarded for the concept of upgrading a certain kind of device. So if sony wants to sell an plug in upgrade for the ps4 they have to license to concept from Nintendo? So dumb...its not just the smartphone industry that these dumb patents happen.